Ginny Adelsheim didn’t know much about farming, viticulture or grapes when she and her then-husband David Adelsheim started their winery in the early 1970s.
She did know how to draw, though. And from the tips of her pencils came 17 portraits that graced the labels on Adelsheim Vineyard wines through the vintages.
Those precious few square inches share a look into the personality of the wine with consumers.
“It’s like a book on the shelf,” she said. “A label has to catch your eye first and make you look closer.”
While Ginny called her first illustration a “vineyard nymph,” subsequent drawings were modeled after real women — friends and family members who played instrumental roles in getting Adelsheim Vineyards, in Newberg, Ore., up and running. When the winery began making reserve wines, Ginny took the portraits in a new direction.
“I think we were trying to figure out how to name our top-of-the-line Pinot Noir … and distinguish it from other Oregon Pinot Noir,” David said.
So the Adelsheims’ only child came to be the namesake — and the artwork — of Elizabeth’s Reserve Pinot Noir.
They launched the label in 1986, and Elizabeth’s face has become one of the most recognized in the Oregon wine industry. It also may have started a trend. On a recent trip to a wine store — she doesn’t often shop for wine — Ginny Adelsheim was surprised by what she saw.
“I could not believe how much illustration there is now on labels,” she said. “It’s almost the exception not to have illustration.”
Just as Adelsheim Vineyards used portraits of family and good friends to tell its story, hundreds of other wineries are vying for consumer attention on grocery store shelves, at wine shops and in restaurants. Some use color and quirky names to attract new wine drinkers, while others depend on sleek designs to convey a history of quality.
An eye-catching and popular technique is silkscreen printing, said Sara Nelson of Sara Nelson Design Ltd. in Pasco, Wash. She’s designed labels for Whitman Cellars and Amavi Cellars in Walla Walla, Wash., Buckmaster Cellars and Sleeping Dog Wines in Benton City, Wash., and more.
The screen printing process means the paint is baked onto the bottle. No paper is necessary.
“It looks clean, simple and elegant,” Nelson said.
Advancements in the technique make it more accessible to smaller wineries. And high-end printing machines at Universal Specialties Inc., in Vernon, British Columbia, allow bottles to be printed with a spectrum of colors and designs at a rate of one bottle per second. The company prints for more than 200 wineries of all sizes up and down the West Coast and saw a 26 percent increase in clientele from 2006 to 2007, said President and Chief Executive Mac McLellan.
“What we attribute much of it to is so often wineries and designers are looking for something new and different, and that’s what we are,” McLellan said.
Brett Scallan, group director of brand development and marketing services for Ste. Michelle Wine Estates in Woodinville, Wash., said several of the wines in the company’s portfolio have screen-printed labels, including Columbia Crest’s new H3 label.
“It’s something that we look at if it’s a look and feel we want to create and it’s something paper can’t create,” Scallan said. “There’s a textural feel that’s associated with it.”
The process used to design labels within the company is intensive, incorporating information gathered from consumer panels and purchasing trends, Scallan said.
Another factor to consider when crafting a label is the wines’ intended market.
Ste. Michelle Wine Estates’ Red Diamond label, for example, was designed a few years ago to appeal to “Millennials” — a buzzword describing those ages 21-31. These potential wine drinkers often embrace an edgy and alternative approach.
Originally, the Red Diamond label was printed onto the bottle using the screen-printing technique for sale in restaurants. However, the dramatic table presence didn’t carry over to the store shelf, so the winery redesigned the label, Scallan said.
“Because you can’t taste the wine in the grocery store, most people are buying on presentation,” Nelson said.
As more wines make their debuts, “funky, quirky” names and designs that wouldn’t be found in Europe are in vogue.
“It’s what people are buying. They buy stuff because it’s fun and their friends will get a kick out of it,” Nelson said.
Whitman Cellars and its “Killer Cab” blend, picturing a taxi cab with fangs, is a prime example, she said.
Kevin Rogers, owner of TimberRock Winery in Post Falls, Idaho, said he’s noticed an emergence of budget-conscientious blends with catchy names, such as Three Legged Red from Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla.
And labels with an extra funk factor also can be more appealing and accessible to casual wine drinkers.
“It’s OK to buy this and drink it with your pizza,” Nelson said.
Catching the attention of the female market was the intent of Rhonda Davis when she designed her new Foxy Roxy Wines labels. She believes her use of polka dots is unique in the industry.
“If a woman bought it, it looks chic-y. If a guy bought it, it looks like he was thinking of her,” said Davis, owner of StoneRidge Vineyards near Othello, Wash.
Davis sells grapes to Rogers, who makes her Chenin Blanc ice wine. And while her male colleagues at the vineyard said the polka dots never would fly, she stuck with her woman’s intuition. And for some reason unknown to her, more men are buying her wine than women.
Established brands don’t rest on their laurels either, though, and their labels require redesigns with a fresh edge while still building on the winery’s heritage.
Columbia Crest celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and Scallan said the winery is taking an evolutionary, not revolutionary, approach to new labels for its Two Vines and Grand Estates tiers. Both tend to appeal to an older generation of wine drinkers who appreciate vineyards and the craft of making wine, he said, and labels need to reflect that understanding.
The concept of capturing the proper feel for his reserve-style Cabernet Sauvignon was a challenge for Rogers, whose day job is caring for animals as a veterinarian. Even though the small winery didn’t employ surveys or marketing data, Rogers sensed the whimsical porcupines on his original bottlings wasn’t going to tell the right story.
So his new TimberRock label — an illustration of a mountain and trees — exemplifies the challenge wineries face in creating a label that tells the story of the wine and its style, while also connecting with consumers.
“If you have a story to tell, which most small wineries do, it’s sometimes difficult to capture the emotion in that small little bit, or to get consumers to turn it over and read the back,” Rogers said.
For Rogers, creating the first label was a matter of finding art that was an expression of himself.
“It’s sort of a reflection of the mood we have for the winery,” he said of the critters playing jazz on his first label.
He found the perfect art for the job one summer in Coeur d’Alene, when he happened upon Alan McNiel’s work — particularly his playful porcupine paintings.
“It would always kind of tickle my funny bone when I saw his artwork,” Rogers said.
So Rogers mailed McNiel a picture of his front porch and asked the artist to depict porcupines playing jazz and drinking wine on the porch.
Subsequent labels followed the porcupine theme. The prickly critters ski across the label of his Chenin Blanc Ice Wine label, and a lone porcupine strums a tune on the bottle of “Old Vines” Chardonnay.
Creating a successful label is a challenge in and of itself. However, winery owners likely will face increased obstacles as a result of a proposal by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau that would require nutritional content and allergen warnings to be included on alcoholic beverages.
Wineries already feel space is squeezed when it comes to fitting in government-mandated messages, such as alcohol content and a safety warning about consumption. Including nutritional information would mean listing fat, carbohydrate and protein content in wines, similar to the information displayed on food products.
The public comment period for the proposal ended in January, and the bureau plans to issue new rules within the year, said beverage industry consultant Alex Heckathorn. He predicts the bureau will allow a three-year compliance period.
Nelson, the label designer, said she’s not looking forward to the expanded requirements.
“It’s already a challenge to get all of the legally required copy and information about the winery on the label,” she said. “I don’t know where we’re going to put it.”
Experts predict some wineries may attempt a horizontal display. For bigger wineries such as Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, the proposal won’t cause quite the headache. Their labels already must comply with international regulations, Scallan said.
“We make those labels work in those environments,” he said.
However, with the mind-boggling number of choices consumers face each time they shop for wine, it’s critical for a label to pop.
“With something as complex as the array of labels, particularly in a specialty store, there’s no way that anybody knows about all the wines that are on offer,” David Adelsheim said.
That’s why Adelsheim Vineyards has continued to evolve its labels, slowly making each of their series of wines look more coherent. For example, the typeface is now the same on all of the labels.
And although Ginny no longer draws the labels, and some in the series now feature architecture instead of people, the portraits — and the wine behind them — created a level of respect for the longtime Oregon winery.
“On a very practical level, I was hoping the portraits would help our labels to be noticed,” Ginny said.
Nearly 30 years later, the portraits continue to draw consumers toward their wines. e
* Ingrid Stegemoeller is a journalist who lives in Kennewick, Wash. This is her first article for Wine Press Northwest.
* Jackie Johnston, a freelance photojournalist, is a regular contributor and the page designer for Wine Press Northwest. She has also designed wine labels. Her Web site is WineCountryCreations.com
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